WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama released the finalized version of the EPA’s power plant rule Monday and many Alabama lawmakers are outraged. The new regulation is over 1500 pages in length and will have a significant economic impact on businesses.
The final rule mandates that power plants cut an average of 32 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. An EPA analysis projects the cost of compliance to be around $8.4 billion per year by 2030, but many non-partisan researchers think that the number could be much higher. NERA, an economic consulting and analysis firm, predicts that the cost of “Energy Efficiency Compliance” could be as much as $73 billion by 2029.
Related: Alabamians huge losers in Obama’s power plan (Analysis)
“The EPA’s release of its final rule to regulate emissions from power plants continues the overreaching, agenda-driven policy that we have seen frequently from the EPA under this administration,” said Gary Palmer (R-AL6). “American workers and their families, particularly the most economically vulnerable, can ill afford the real-life costs of this rule, which will result in significant utility rate increases and lost jobs with little to no measurable environmental impact.”
Congressman Mike Rogers echoed the sentiments of his colleague.
“This Administration and the EPA continue their pattern of overreach into our lives and pockets with President Obama’s clean power plan announcement. In June, the Supreme Court ruled against parts of President Obama’s radical agenda, yet he continues to push forward with his faulty environmental plans. This clean power plan will do nothing more than pass on additional costs to consumers and raise energy prices for hard-working families across East Alabama already struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck. I will continue to fight against this very flawed proposal.”
Palmer and other House Republicans have taken action to delay the implementation of the rule. Last month, the House passed The Ratepayer Protection Act by a vote of 247-180. The act would delay the implementation of the rule until all judicial and administrative reviews are final and no longer eligible for appeal.
Alabama is one of those states asking for a judicial review. “The Environmental Protection Agency’s new Clean Power Plan continues the Obama administration’s theme of ignoring the legal limits on its executive authority in order to satisfy a political agenda that places the lowest priority on the rights of coal industry workers and American consumers,” said State Attorney General Luther Strange (R-AL).
“Under the EPA rule, Alabamians’ average annual household energy bills could rise by more than $800 a year by the time the plan is fully implemented. This places an undue burden on those who can least afford it, including the poor, the elderly and others on fixed incomes. What’s more, it punishes as many as 16,000 Alabamians whose jobs are dependent upon the coal industry,” Strange said.
Several of President Obama’s executive agencies have found trouble with their regulations in court. In June the U.S. Supreme Court Struck down an EPA air-quality rule 5-4 because the Clean Air Act requires the agency to factor in the costs that regulations will have on businesses.
Federal courts have also halted a rule known as the ‘Cross-State’ regulation, which set stringent air pollution limits on Alabama’s sulfur dioxide emissions crossing state lines. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said the EPA’s rule imposed overly strict limits on the 13 upwind states, of which Alabama is a part. As a practical matter, the limits would result in downwind states “overachieving” air quality standards for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.
Alabama and other states are also currently fighting the “Waters of the United States” rule, which extends the EPA’s and Army Corps of Engineers’ regulatory reach to an indefinite number of small bodies of water, including roadside ditches, temporary streams or “any waters located within the 100-year floodplain of a traditional navigable water.”
Alabama’s battle against the Power Plant rule could prevent the implementation of one of the most costly regulations ever. The Supreme Court, in the previously aforementioned decision against the administration, struck down a rule because of cost-based considerations that were only 13 percent of what NERA estimates the Power Plant Rule will cost.
A spokesman for Attorney General Strange said the state would file a lawsuit against the rule as soon it is officially entered into the federal register.
